The Medium

The Medium presents a unique challenge for the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination. The data shows a fixed-camera horror title where the GPU is overwhelmingly dominant, yet the processor’s four cores still define the upper ceiling of performance. Benchmark results indicate a pairing that is heavily skewed toward the graphics card, with the CPU acting as a secondary constraint that becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. This analysis walks through the measured frames per second (FPS) to determine the optimal settings, the role of each component, and how this specific configuration ranks among thousands of tested combinations.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the High preset delivers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, High produces an average of 103 FPS, which is a substantial improvement over the 82 FPS seen on Ultra while remaining visually demanding. The jump to Medium at 1080p yields 120 FPS, but the incremental gain of 17 FPS over High comes with a noticeable reduction in visual fidelity. For a horror game reliant on atmosphere and shadow detail, High offers the best compromise between frame rate and image quality.

At 2560x1440, the High preset again stands out with an average of 87 FPS. This is comfortably above the 69 FPS recorded on Ultra, and it maintains a smoother experience than the 113 FPS Medium setting, which sacrifices too much in lighting and texture quality. The 1440p High result of 87 FPS suggests that the RTX 5090 D is still the primary driver here, but the CPU is beginning to limit the headroom, as evidenced by the smaller gap between High and Medium compared to lower resolutions.

The 3840x2160 results reinforce High as the recommended preset. At 4K, High achieves 68 FPS, which is playable and visually rich. The Ultra preset drops to 54 FPS, which is below the threshold for a consistently smooth experience in a game that relies on slow, deliberate camera movements. Medium at 4K returns 95 FPS, but the visual downgrade is more pronounced at this resolution, making High the clear winner for maintaining both performance and presentation. In summary, High is the optimal preset for every resolution tested, offering the highest fidelity while staying above 60 FPS in all cases.

FAQ

Q: Does the Intel Core i3-12100F bottleneck the RTX 5090 D in The Medium?

A: The data suggests a partial bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 144, and at 1440p Low it is 136, while at 4K Low it rises to 125. The relatively small FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings indicates that the CPU is limiting the frame rate, as the GPU has headroom to render more frames at lower resolutions but cannot due to the processor’s 4-core, 8-thread configuration.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 D’s 32 GB VRAM necessary for this game?

A: The measured data does not include VRAM usage, but the GPU’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory is far beyond what a title like The Medium requires. The game’s performance is more dependent on the GPU’s raw compute, as seen in the 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, rather than its memory capacity, which is a safety margin for future titles rather than a necessity here.

Q: How does the CPU’s single-thread performance affect the results?

A: The Core i3-12100F has a boost clock of 4.30 GHz and a single-thread benchmark score of 893 in 3dmark. This strong single-core capability is crucial for The Medium’s fixed-camera scenes, which often rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The data shows that at 1080p Ultra, the FPS drops to 82, indicating that even with strong single-thread performance, the 4-core design struggles to feed the RTX 5090 D at higher settings.

Q: What is the best resolution to play The Medium with this combo?

A: 2560x1440 on High provides the best overall experience, with an average of 87 FPS. This resolution balances the GPU’s strengths with the CPU’s limitations. While 1080p yields higher frame rates, the gains are modest and the visual clarity is lower. At 4K, the experience is still playable on High at 68 FPS, but 1440p offers the best blend of smoothness and detail.

Q: Why does the FPS drop significantly between Medium and Ultra settings?

A: The difference between Medium and Ultra is substantial across all resolutions. At 1080p, the drop from 120 FPS on Medium to 82 FPS on Ultra represents a 32% reduction. This indicates that Ultra settings place a heavy load on the GPU’s shading units and texture processing, as the RTX 5090 D’s 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance is still taxed by the game’s highest preset.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 145th out of 3724 tested combinations, placing it in the top 4% of all configurations. This high rank is primarily driven by the GPU’s exceptional performance, which is in the 92nd percentile among all graphics cards, while the CPU’s 68th percentile ranking among all processors holds the combo back from a top-50 finish.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this pairing, and the measured FPS data confirms its overwhelming influence on The Medium’s performance. The GPU’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, which is more than sufficient for the game’s textures and geometry. The 21760 shading units and 170 ray tracing cores deliver a raw compute capability of 104.8 TFLOPS FP32, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs.

This raw power is evident in the scaling of FPS with resolution. At 1080p Low, the GPU is capable of 144 FPS, but this is capped by the CPU. As resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the GPU takes on more of the rendering load, and the FPS drops to 136 and 125 respectively on Low settings. This shows that the RTX 5090 D is not fully utilized at lower resolutions, as the CPU cannot issue commands fast enough. At 4K High, the GPU is pushed harder, resulting in 68 FPS, which is a 53% reduction from the 1080p Low result, demonstrating that the GPU’s performance scales predictably with pixel count.

The VRAM capacity of 32 GB is a decisive factor for stability. While The Medium does not require this much memory, the headroom ensures that there are no texture streaming hitches, particularly at 4K with High settings. The GPU’s boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz are also relevant, as they allow the card to maintain high utilization in scenes with dense particle effects or complex lighting, which are common in horror titles. The data shows that the GPU is the primary limiter at 4K, where even the Ultra preset struggles to maintain 60 FPS, confirming that the RTX 5090 D is the component that determines the game’s visual ceiling.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D achieves a rank of 145 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium. This places the configuration in the top 3.9% of all systems, which is an impressive result driven almost entirely by the GPU. The RTX 5090 D alone ranks in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, while the Core i3-12100F sits in the 68th percentile among all CPUs. This discrepancy highlights a significant mismatch: the GPU is capable of far more performance than the CPU can deliver in CPU-bound scenarios.

The combo’s rank is lower than what the GPU alone would achieve, as the CPU’s 4 cores and 8 threads limit the frame rate in lighter scenes. For example, at 1080p Low, the average FPS is 144, which is likely near the CPU’s maximum frame output. If the CPU were stronger, the GPU could push this number higher. The nearest CPU rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-9500 with a deltaPct of 0.3% and the Intel Core 3 N355 with a deltaPct of 0%, show that the i3-12100F is in a tight cluster of mid-range processors. However, none of these rivals have the RTX 5090 D’s raw power, so the combo’s rank is more proof of the GPU’s dominance than the CPU’s contribution.

In the context of all tested combos, a rank of 145 means that only 144 other configurations performed better. This is a strong showing for a CPU that is typically paired with more modest graphics cards. The data indicates that for a game like The Medium, the GPU is the key differentiator, and the RTX 5090 D’s inclusion propels this budget CPU into the upper echelon of performance, even if the processor prevents it from reaching the very top.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern in how performance scales from 1080p to 4K, which illuminates the limiting component at each stage. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 144. Moving to 1440p Low, the FPS only drops to 136, a mere 5.6% reduction. This small decrease is a classic sign of a CPU bottleneck, as the GPU has ample headroom to render more pixels, but the processor cannot increase its instruction throughput. At 4K Low, the FPS drops further to 125, which is a 13.2% reduction from 1080p. This shows that at 4K, the GPU is finally becoming more engaged, but the CPU is still a factor.

The scaling pattern changes dramatically on High settings. At 1080p High, the average is 103 FPS. At 1440p High, this drops to 87 FPS, a 15.5% reduction. At 4K High, the FPS falls to 68, a 34% reduction from 1080p. This steeper drop indicates that the GPU is now the primary limiter, as the higher graphical load requires more pixel processing and texture shading, which is the RTX 5090 D’s domain. The transition from Low to High settings shifts the bottleneck from the CPU to the GPU, which is expected given the i3-12100F’s limited core count.

The Medium settings provide an intermediate view. At 1080p Medium, the FPS is 120, dropping to 113 at 1440p (a 5.8% reduction) and then to 95 at 4K (a 20.8% reduction from 1080p). This suggests that Medium settings are still somewhat CPU-bound at lower resolutions, but become GPU-bound at 4K. The overall data shows that the CPU limits performance at 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU takes over as the limiting factor at 4K, particularly on higher presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured FPS values provides a detailed picture of this combo’s performance across all settings and resolutions.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 144 FPS. The Medium preset yields 120 FPS, with a minimum of 102 FPS and a maximum of 138 FPS. High settings produce an average of 103 FPS, while Ultra drops to 82 FPS. The range from 144 FPS on Low to 82 FPS on Ultra shows a 43% performance swing, which is substantial and highlights the impact of the CPU at this resolution. The minimum FPS of 102 on Medium suggests that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate remains playable.

At 2560x1440, Low settings average 136 FPS, which is only 8 FPS lower than 1080p Low. Medium averages 113 FPS, with a minimum of 96 and a maximum of 130. High settings produce 87 FPS, and Ultra drops to 69 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 67 FPS, or a 49% reduction. This is a larger relative drop than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is beginning to influence the results more heavily.

At 3840x2160, Low settings average 125 FPS. Medium averages 95 FPS, with a minimum of 81 and a maximum of 110. High settings yield 68 FPS, and Ultra falls to 54 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 71 FPS, or a 57% reduction. This is the largest relative drop across all resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K. The minimum FPS of 81 on Medium at 4K suggests that even the lowest recorded frames are still above 60, but the Ultra preset’s 54 FPS average is the only result that falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Its benchmark scores show a mixed profile: the single-thread score of 893 in 3dmark is respectable, but the multi-thread score of 4051 in the same test is limited by the core count. The CPU ranks in the 68th percentile among all processors, which is above average but far from the top tier.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is most apparent at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the FPS is capped at 144, which is likely the maximum frame output the CPU can sustain. The fact that 1440p Low only drops to 136 FPS, a 5.6% reduction, reinforces this. The CPU’s 4 cores are sufficient for the game’s main thread, but the 8 threads are not enough to fully utilize the RTX 5090 D’s capabilities. The data shows that at 1080p Ultra, the FPS drops to 82, which is a 43% reduction from Low, indicating that the increased graphical load is now being passed to the GPU, but the CPU still cannot keep up with the frame generation demands.

The CPU’s single-thread performance is crucial for this game. The Medium uses a fixed-camera perspective, which often results in fewer objects on screen but more complex lighting and shadow calculations. The i3-12100F’s boost clock of 4.30 GHz helps in these scenarios, as the game’s primary rendering thread can execute quickly. However, the lack of additional cores means that background tasks and secondary threads can cause frame hitches, which is reflected in the minimum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the minimum FPS is 102, which is a 15% drop from the average of 120, suggesting occasional CPU stalls. Overall, the CPU is a limiting factor that prevents the RTX 5090 D from reaching its full potential, particularly at 1080p and 1440p, but it does not render the combo unusable at any resolution.